The publicity surrounding the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre has exceeded the most notorious cases in Florida’s history, eclipsing coverage of serial killers Ted Bundy, Aileen Wuornos and Daniel Rolling, the lawyer for confessed shooter Nikolas Cruz said Monday.

The non-stop coverage is making it impossible to imagine Cruz receiving a fair trial, said defense lawyer David Frankel, urging a Broward judge to block the public release of the confession his client gave to police hours after the shooting.

Frankel argued that releasing any of the confession will feed into the relentless media coverage that, locally, has barely let up since Cruz killed 17 and injured 17 more at the Parkland school on Valentine’s Day.

Some of Florida’s most notorious cases were never under the type of media and social media environment that exists today, Frankel said. “Rolling, Bundy and Wuornos did not result in constant, 24-hour day and night coverage,” he said.

Bundy killed dozens of women across the country. His 1979 trial in Miami was the first in the U.S. to be televised nationally. Wuornos killed seven men in Florida in 1989 and 1990 — her killing spree was the subject of the 2003 movie “Monster.” And Rolling, known as “The Gainesville Ripper,” killed five students at the University of Florida in the late 1980s.

All three were executed.

Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer deferred ruling on the confession, saying that if she approves the public release, she will give the defense 10 days to appeal.

Nikolas Cruz will be robbed of his chance at a fair trial if a school district report on his educational records is released to the public, his lawyers argued Wednesday.

Broward school district officials say they want the report, compiled by an independent consulting firm that reviewed the Marjory...

Cruz came into the courtroom Monday afternoon and immediately sat between lawyers Melisa McNeill and Diane Cuddihy, bowed his head and laid it face down on the defense table.

His brother, Zachary Cruz, also came to court. Zachary Cruz has lived in Virginia since May but has returned to Broward for his brother’s hearings.

Nikolas Cruz is facing the death penalty, and while his lawyers have conceded that he is guilty of killing 17 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14 and injuring 17 more, they have focused their efforts on trying to spare his life.

Broward State Attorney Mike Satz has rejected defense offers to have Cruz plead guilty in exchange for a guaranteed life sentence.

Under Florida law, a defendant’s confession to police is exempt from release to the public until it is made public at trial or after the case is resolved. Statements that don’t incriminate the defendant can be released.

Frankel told Scherer that “98 percent of [Cruz’s statement] is the defendant discussing” the planning of the shooting spree, the actual act and Cruz’s initial escape from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School campus.

Prosecutor Steven Klinger did not argue substantively against the defense motion to withhold Cruz’s confession from the public.

Scherer said the release of that report is a civil matter that is properly before Broward Circuit Judge Patti Englander Henning.

Englander Henning said last week that if she decides to make part of the report public, she will give Cruz’s lawyers five days to challenge the ruling.

Scherer suggested a trial date of September 2019, but lawyers said that was an unrealistic time frame. Prosecutors have listed about 968 witnesses and they don’t yet have the lead detective’s final report.

The school district has tried to block the court-ordered release of video footage from outside Stoneman Douglas on the day of the shooting.